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Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories. My co-host and show editor is Andrew Ferguson.

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• An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.
• You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.

1. Make sure you are registered to vote! VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter InformationTEXAS SoS VOTE-BY-MAIL BALLOT APPLICATION (ALL TEXAS COUNTIES) HarrisVotes.com­ – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
   1. Harris County “Vote-By-Mail’ Application for 2022
      1. Fort bend County Elections/Voter Registration Machine takes you to the proper link
      2. GalvestonVotes.org (Galveston County, TX)
      3. Liberty County Elections (Liberty County, TX)
      4. Montgomery County (TX) Elections
      5. Brazoria County (TX) Clerk Election Information
      6. Waller County (TX) Elections
      7. Chambers County (TX) Elections
      8. For personalized, nonpartisan voter guides and information, Consider visiting Vote.ORG.   Ballotpedia.com and Texas League of Women Voters are also good places to get election info.
      9. If you are denied your right to vote any place at any time at any polling place for any reason, ask for (or demand) a provisional ballot rather than lose your vote.
      10. HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting CentersHARRIS COUNTY – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED FOR VOTING: Do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one of these IDs?
          1. Fill out a declaration at the polls describing a reasonable impediment to obtaining it, and show a copy or original of one of the following supporting forms of ID:
          2. A government document that shows your name and an address, including your voter registration certificate
          3. Current utility bill
          4. Bank statement
          5. Government check
          6. Paycheck
          7. A certified domestic (from a U.S. state or territory) birth certificate or (b) a document confirming birth admissible in a court of law which establishes your identity (which may include a foreign birth document)
          8. You may vote early by-mail if:You are registered to vote and meet one of the following criteria:
             1. Away from the county of residence on Election Day and during the early voting period;
             2. Sick or disabled;
             3. 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or
             4. Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
             5. Make sure you are registered:
             6. Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
             7. CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
             8. CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
             9. Outside Texas, try Vote.org.
2. BE REGISTERED TO VOTE, and for those of you who are eligible, REMEMBER TO FILL OUT AND MAIL YOUR MAIL-IN BALLOT APPLICATIONS FOR 2022
   1. You can track your Mail Ballot Activity from our website with direct link provided here https://www.harrisvotes.com/Tracking
   2. Primary Election: March 1.
   3. Early Voting by Personal Appearance has begun. Last Day of Early Voting by Personal Appearance is Friday, February 25.
   4. Last Day to Apply for Ballot by Mail (can’t be faxed or emailed)à Friday, February 18.
      (Postmarked, if not Received)
   5. Last day for Receipt of Marked Ballot by Mail à Tuesday, March 1 (Election Day) at 7:00 p.m. if carrier envelope is not postmarked, OR Thursday, March 3 (next business day* after Election Day) at 5:00 p.m. if carrier envelope is postmarked by 7:00 p.m. at the location of the election on Election Day (unless overseas or military voter deadlines apply)⁴ *First business day after Texas Independence Day
3. PRIMARY ELECTION INFORMATION
   1. Texas’ primary election is March 1. Here’s what you need to know to vote.; by Alexa Ura and Mandi Cai| TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | Jan. 17, 20225 AM Central
   2. MIKE: As an FYI, Community Impact has been doing a series of stories in the GOVERNMENT section for the past few days on “Getting To Know The Candidates” in a number of primary races. You might check CommunityImpact.com and see if you’re in one of the district races covered.
   3. League of Women Voters of Texas launches online Vote 411 [VOTE 411.ORG] tool in advance of primary elections; By Summer El-Shahawy | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 4:56 PM Feb 1, 2022 CST, Updated 4:56 PM Feb 1, 2022 CST — The League of Women Voters of Texas, a nonpartisan civic nonprofit, has put together an interactive, online voter guide to help educate people about the many upcoming races across Texas during election season. The interactive version of the guide, vote411.org, offers a variety of tools. …
4. 288 Expressway rates rise; By Andy Yanez | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 7:00 AM Feb 10, 2022 CST | Updated 2:21 PM Feb 10, 2022 CST
   1. Drivers utilizing the Brazoria County portion of the Hwy. 288 toll road, the Brazoria County Expressway, saw the first rate increase in the 13 months of the toll’s existence.
   2. The Brazoria County Toll Road Authority on Jan. 10 raised the rates of the two gantries, where drivers are charged for using the express lanes, to a total of $2.65 heading north or southbound—charging $1 at the CR 58 gantry and $1.65 at the McHard Road gantry. The previous rate was $1.80, Brazoria County Engineer Matt Hanks said.
   3. “We felt it was the right thing to do as a toll road authority,” Hanks said.
   4. The Hwy. 288 toll road extends from CR 58 in Pearland to Hwy. 59 in Houston, heading in both north and south directions.
   5. Harris County’s toll road portion extends from Hwy. 59 to Clear Creek and is maintained and operated by the Blueridge Transportation Group through a public-private partnership, said Raynese Edwards, public information officer for BTG Hwy. 288. The BTG does not maintain nor operate Brazoria County’s portion, Hanks said.
   6. The toll rates on the Hwy. 288 Expressway are dictated by the market share, inflation rate and congestion, Hanks said.
   7. On Dec. 1, 2020, the Harris County portion charged drivers traveling through all three Harris County gantries $5-$6.30, depending on the time of day and driving direction, according to the Drive 288 website, which provides drivers with the daily rates of the Hwy. 288 express lanes in Harris County set by the [Blueridge Transportation Group, or BTG.]
   8. As of press time Feb. 8, rates have increased to $10.59-$11.51 for the same trip, according to the Drive 288 website. Brazoria County increased its toll rate Jan. 10 due to Harris County’s increased rates, Hanks said.
   9. The BTG reviews Harris County’s rates of the Hwy. 288 managed lanes on a monthly basis, Edwards said, but it can also fluctuate every 30 minutes, depending on demand and time of day. Brazoria County’s rate does not fluctuate, Hanks said.
   10. “Depending on the customer, we have received complaints on pricing; however, we have also received compliments related to the time savings for travel,” Edwards said. Expressway changes
   11. Brazoria and Harris counties raised the rates of their respective portions of the Hwy. 288 Expressway. Brazoria County’s rate has risen by 85 cents since December 2020, while Harris County’s has risen by more than $5.
5. Unhoused Texans weather another winter storm with little aid; Advocates say emergency communications have not improved much since last year, and people experiencing homelessness were less likely to seek help this year because of new state and local policies targeting them. by Sneha Dey | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | Feb. 9, 2022 Updated: Feb. 11, 2022
   1. … After a deadly freeze last year in which the unhoused were among the most vulnerable, local officials vowed to do a better job next time, particularly with emergency communications. But during last week’s storm, many unhoused Texans still did not have adequate information from municipalities about where to find shelter and how to get there. And compounding the problem, advocates say recent state and local policies that target people experiencing homelessness have made unhoused Texans more hesitant to seek help.
   2. In Austin, “the city had a year to prepare and broadcast a plan for cold weather shelter in the case of a dramatic freeze,” said Scott Hoft, an organizer with Stop the Sweeps Austin, a local advocacy group against the clearing of homeless encampments. “The city left houseless people, their friends and service providers wondering what the plan was.”
   3. In Houston, officials are reporting at least three people without shelter died when temperatures dropped last week. It’s unclear how many people died or required treatment across the state after being exposed to the cold during this year’s winter storm. …
   4. One of the biggest takeaways from last year’s storm at both the state and local levels was the need to improve emergency communications. During the freeze, Texas failed to provide accessible and life-saving updates on outages and inclement weather. A November audit of Austin’s 2021 storm response found that the city left many residents without critical information and did not effectively reach people experiencing homelessness.
   5. A year later, advocates report a similar break in communication. …
   6. When local governments do not meet the needs of unhoused people, organizers say they are forced to mobilize — even when they are strapped for resources.
   7. In Houston, volunteers at the Black Trans Texas Connection picked up unhoused people and transported them to the group’s shelter, Thrive House. The group housed 17 people during last week’s storm, organizers said. Black and trans residents are especially vulnerable and are among the last to get accepted into a shelter or have access to a safe environment, said Black Trans Texas Connection founder Sarah Pope.
   8. Houston at the time was advising residents against travel. Pope said the city should have hired staff to transport people to shelters so she and other organizers wouldn’t have to put themselves at risk. …
   9. An affordability crisis is driving an increase in homelessness across the state. Texans are moving out of metropolitan areas, driving up the cost of housing in rural areas, said Tresha Silva, the executive director of the Bastrop County Emergency Food Pantry.
   10. In Bastrop County, a mostly rural region 30 miles southeast of Austin, a growing unhoused population has resulted in a greater demand for food, shelter and resources. …
   11. The greater demand for shelter can be especially challenging for rural counties, where resources can be more limited. Bastrop County has just one shelter that opens during bad weather conditions. County officials also opened warming centers last week.
   12. Nick Thompson, the statewide initiatives manager at the Texas Homeless Network, said recent state and local efforts targeting homeless people make Texans less likely to seek help.
   13. The legislature passed House Bill 1925 last year, which amounts to a statewide ban on homeless camping. Texans now face a fine of up to $500 and a Class C misdemeanor if they camp in public spaces. The city of Austin, which has struggled with a rise in homelessness, reinstated a local camping ban last year.
   14. “This really incentivizes folks, a lot of times, to stay out of the public eye so that they’re not going to be contacted by the police, so they’re less likely to be found or called upon by law enforcement officers,” Thompson said. …
   15. William [, a homeless man], has been without shelter since he was 18 years old. He’s been in Austin with his wife for seven years. Since camping in public spaces was made a criminal offense, he’s been subject to city sweeps of homeless encampments, during which cleanup crews have taken his belongings.
   16. He said that while he and other unhoused people in Austin managed to get through another winter storm, the dehumanization of people experiencing homelessness will continue.
   17. “We can’t sleep, so we’re always tired. We can’t make a job interview because we’re always worried about APD [Austin Police Department] taking our stuff. It sucks being homeless here now. I had people that used to look out for me,” William said. “The only difference between an ice day and a non-ice day is the ice. These things don’t change year-round.”
6. Texas has new political maps. See which districts your home is in. By Carla Astudillo, Mandi Cai and Kalley Huang | TEXASTRIBUNE | Published: Oct. 22, 2021 Updated: Feb. 14, 2022
   1. Texas lawmakers have redrawn political maps for the state’s congressional, House, Senate and Board of Education districts. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has signed these maps into law. However, the maps face at least five legal challenges, including one from the U.S. Department of Justice, based on claims that the newly drawn districts discriminate against voters of color. If you enter your address below, we’ll customize this page so you can see how the new districts will affect your community. (Don’t worry, we won’t store your information.) Click on each map to explore the districts in more detail.
   2. The main thing here is to enter YOUR address to see what redistricting changed mean to you and your representation.
7. Voter turnout in Texas primaries is dramatically low. New political maps and voting law could create more obstacles. Texas has a history of a dismal turnout rate in primary elections, and with early voting underway, here’s how redistricting and new voting restrictions could exacerbate low participation. by Mandi Cai and Sneha Dey | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | Feb. 14, 20225 AM Central
   1. MIKE: I feel like the headline and the teaser are pretty much the story. As always, you can click on the show post link for the full story, but the headline is to do your best to vote. The best way to work around problems is not to wait until the last minute to vote. If you’re voting in person, vote as early as you can. If you are voting by mail, try to make your decisions and mail your ballot as soon as possible. If you have a paper ballot and decide to vote in person, bring your paper ballot with you so it can be “spoiled” and then vote as you normally would in person.
   2. MIKE: In Harris County, the good news is that there will be new voting machines that generate a paper trail. The bad news is that they’re new voting machines, so expect the process to be slower than it will be as learning curves improve. Try to be patient with any lines and with the machines.
8. Texas ban on encouraging mail-in votes likely unconstitutional, judge rules; The challenged provision makes it a state jail felony for election officials to “solicit the submission” of an application to vote by mail if the voter did not request it. by Alexa Ura | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | Feb. 11, 20228 PM Central
   1. A new Texas law that keeps local election officials from encouraging voters to request mail-in ballots likely violates the First Amendment, a federal judge ruled late Friday.
   2. Following a testy three-hour hearing earlier in the day, Federal District Judge Xavier Rodriguez temporarily blocked the state from enforcing the rule against Harris County’s election administrator until the rest of a lawsuit plays out. Although the scope of Rodriguez’s preliminary injunction is limited, the judge dealt the first legal blow to new elections restrictions and voting changes Republican lawmakers enacted last year.
   3. The injunction applies to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and local county prosecutors in Harris, Travis and Williamson counties.
   4. The state is expected to quickly appeal the ruling. The lawsuit was brought by Harris County election administrator Isabel Longoria and Cathy Morgan, a volunteer deputy registrar who is appointed to help register voters in Travis and Williamson counties.
   5. 18 is the last day for counties to receive applications for mail-in ballots for the March 1 primary. …
   6. Rodriguez took particular issue with the lack of a clear definition for what constitutes soliciting when talking to voters, even those 65 and older who automatically qualify to vote by mail under the state’s strict rules.
   7. “It has a chilling effect,” Rodriguez said while questioning a state attorney Friday morning. “They don’t know when they’re going to run afoul of this vague [law].”
   8. His comments followed testimony from Longoria and Morgan, who said they feared the civil and criminal penalties that could come from violating the broad prohibition.
   9. Longoria said her office was now taking a “passive” approach to voter outreach in regard to voting by mail, with staffers “gingerly” weighing their words while answering voters’ questions about their options.
   10. “When it comes to voting by mail, I have to be very careful with my words,” Longoria said from the witness stand. “I stop mid-sentence sometimes at town halls. … I’m tentative to overreach at the moment.” …
   11. Eventually, Will Thompson of the Texas attorney general’s office told Rodriguez that the provision was meant to limit “official encouragement” of voting by mail, indicating the state preferred people vote in person even if they qualify to vote by mail.
   12. “We’re not taking the position that the Legislature is opposed to voting by mail,” Thompson said. “That doesn’t mean the Legislature wants resources to be used toward nudging people toward voting by mail.”…
   13. The Harris County lawsuit is just one in a heap of challenges to the election law [SB1]. The expansive fight against the law includes civil rights groups and community organizations that advocate for voters of color and voters with disabilities who argue the law discriminates against those voters. The U.S. Department of Justice joined those plaintiffs with its own lawsuit last year, targeting new restrictions on mail-in ballots and voter assistance.
   14. Those cases are expected to go to trial later this year.
9. Republican incumbents hold big leads in statewide March primary races, UT poll says; The poll shows Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have a significant advantage over their primary opponents. Democratic respondents heavily support Beto O’Rourke for governor but don’t know enough about the party’s candidates in other races. by Andrew Zhang | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | Feb. 14, 20223 PM Central
   1. … Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton are head and shoulders above their competition in the Republican primaries, according to the responses from the 41% of surveyed voters who said they would vote in the Republican primary. Paxton, who is the most likely of the three to be pulled into a runoff, faces the most significant competition in his race.
   2. On the Democratic side, former presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke was the choice for governor of 93% of the polled voters who said they would vote in the Democratic primary. But below O’Rourke on the ticket, a majority of voters said they had not thought enough about the down-ballot Democratic primaries to make an immediate choice between candidates, a sign that the party still has significant work to do to introduce its candidates to voters and disrupt the longtime Republican hold on the state.
   3. In a hypothetical matchup right now between O’Rourke and Abbott — the leading primary candidates in their respective parties — the poll found that Abbott would win the race for the governor’s mansion 47%-37%. The 10-point predicted victory nearly matches the result of a 9-point win for Abbott when the same question was asked in a UT/Texas Tribune poll from November. …
   4. [[Joshua Blank, research director for the Texas Politics Project at UT, said that G]iven recent election results in Texas that have seen Democrats lose by margins smaller than 10 points, Blank said there is still potential for a shift in public opinion — either toward Abbott and O’Rourke — over the next couple of months leading into the general election. …
   5. In the Democratic primary races, 57% and 52% of voters said they hadn’t thought enough about the lieutenant governor or attorney general matchups, respectively — a result that points to how Democrats still face an uphill battle to get their candidates elected to statewide office as they push against longtime Republican dominance.
   6. “In most cases, their candidates are not well known to begin with, because they’re not drawing from a bench of formerly elected statewide leaders,” Blank said. “The task of introducing oneself to the electorate is extremely difficult in a state as large as Texas. It’s not only geographically large, but it’s also a diverse media landscape in which a statewide ad in all of Texas’ media markets can be prohibitively expensive for most candidates. And so this is the disadvantage Democrats always face.”
   7. When asked to choose, 46% of voters who said they’d participate in the Democratic primary picked 2018 lieutenant governor candidate Mike Collier, with state Rep. Michelle Beckley, D-Carrollton, coming away with 27% and Carla Brailey, the former vice chair of the Texas Democratic Party, getting 23%.
   8. For the attorney general primary, Rochelle Garza, a former lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, was the choice of 41% of polled voters who said they’ll participate in the Democratic primary. Former Galveston mayor Joe Jaworski garnered 24% of survey takers’ support, civil rights attorney Lee Merritt came away with 15% and former Harris County judge Mike Fields garnered 11%. …
   9. The poll found that 62% of survey takers oppose efforts by some politicians to remove books from public school libraries, including 47% who strongly oppose such efforts. Thirty-nine percent of respondents said they supported such efforts, while 9% did not know or indicated no opinion.
   10. Regarding parental influence in schools, 44% said they thought parents had enough influence over what their children were taught, while 41% said they did not think so. Fifteen percent said they did not know or had no opinion.
   11. Last year, Texas passed a near-total abortion ban that thrust the state into the national spotlight over restrictions on the procedure. Forty-three percent of respondents said abortion laws in Texas should be made less strict. Twenty-three percent of respondents indicated that the laws should be left as they are, and 23% said restrictions on the procedure should be more strict. …
   12. Additionally, voters were split over the stringency of Texas’ voting laws, which were tightened across the board in a sweeping elections bill this year. Thirty percent said voting rules should be further tightened, 31% said they should be left as they are and 29% said rules should be less strict. Nine percent said they didn’t know or had no opinion.
   13. Blank noted that years of conservative governance in Texas — coupled with the recent redistricting process that aimed to entrench the Republican Party’s control over the state’s politics for the next decade — have allowed for the GOP to pass increasingly conservative policies, even without broad appeal among the electorate.
   14. “Currently, it’s hard not to look at the broader public opinion landscape and not see a lot of either conflict in issues that have split the electorate down the middle or outright opposition in some cases to a lot of the banner legislation that was passed in the last year,” Blank said.
   15. MIKE: Interestingly, the top half of the article is almost entirely about Republican races, while Democratic races aren’t significantly discussed until the bottom half of the article. While the Tribune attempts to be non-partisan, I think this was an unfortunate editorial choice and reinforces the challenges that down-ballot Democrats have in making themselves known.
   16. Mike: The issues polling results are somewhat concerning.
   17. MIKE: I only excerpted about a third of the article, so you can go to the show post link and see the complete story.
10. Frontier and Spirit to merge, creating America’s fifth-largest airline; By Phil LeBeau, CNBC | Feb. 7, 2022, 6:25 AM CST / Updated Feb. 7, 2022, 11:22 AM CST
    1. Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines, the two largest low-cost carriers in the U.S. have agreed to merge, creating what would become the fifth-largest airline in the country. …
    2. “This transaction is centered around creating an aggressive ultra-low fare competitor to serve our guests even better,” said Spirit CEO Ted Christie in a statement about the agreement.
    3. In 2013 Spirit and Frontier had 2.8 percent of the revenue passenger miles flown by U.S. airlines according to the Department of Transportation. By 2019, their combined market share had almost doubled to 5.4 percent, while the four largest airlines in the U.S., American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines, controlled 73.9 percent of revenue passenger miles.
11. Johnson & Johnson halts production of single-dose COVID-19 vaccine, report says; By Megan Cerullo | CBSNEWS.COM/MoneyWatch | Updated on: February 8, 2022 / 4:44 PM
    1. The pharmaceutical company last year quietly shut down production at a plant in Leiden, Netherlands, which was the only facility where usable doses of the vaccine were manufactured, catching some of its customers off guard, including developing nations that prefer the single-dose J&J drug over two-dose alternatives, the report states.
    2. Johnson & Johnson has instead been using the plant to work on an experimental and potentially more profitable drug that could protect against an unrelated respiratory virus, according to the report.
    3. The plant is expected to resume manufacturing of the COVID-19 vaccine, but it is unclear when.
    4. J&J did not comment on the plant closure reports, but said in a statement to CBS News “we currently have millions of doses of our COVID-19 vaccine in inventory” and “we continue to fulfill our contractual obligations … [to] the African Union.”…
    5. Wealthier nations like the U.S. have favored shots from Moderna and Pfizer, because the two appear to be more effective against COVID-19 variants like Omicron, and because the [J&J] vaccine has, in the past, been linked to rare but potentially life-threatening blood clots.
    6. Given that only one dose of the J&J vaccine is required, though, it’s less expensive than its double-dose counterparts and also easier to deliver, making it popular in lower-income countries.
12. Russia aims to ward off NATO in the event of a Ukraine invasion; By Paul Sonne and Ellen Nakashima | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | Feb 15, 2022 at 8:41 p.m. EST
    1. As Russian President Vladimir Putin sends mixed signals about his willingness to invade Ukraine, his military continues to undertake activities that appear designed not only to ready an offensive but to thwart any attempt by the United States and NATO to intervene, according to Western officials and analysts.
    2. President Biden, who on Tuesday warned that Russian forces around Ukraine now number 150,000 even as Moscow claimed that some of its forces had pulled back, has explicitly ruled out the possibility of deploying U.S. troops to combat an invasion. Such a move, the president has said, would risk another world war. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has made similar pronouncements about Western military intervention.
    3. The prospect of a large-scale nuclear exercise, the presence of sophisticated air defenses in Belarus and elsewhere, and an array of powerful naval assets spread throughout the Black and Mediterranean seas have underscored to Western capitals just how difficult and dangerous any attempted intervention would be.
    4. The Kremlin, said Samuel Charap, a Russia specialist and senior political scientist at the Rand Corp., is looking to “abundantly disincentivize” the alliance even from contemplating coming to Ukraine’s aid militarily. “The way the Russians have thought about this kind of an operation is they have two problems to solve,” he said. “One is the immediate issue of outgunning smaller adversaries along their periphery like Ukraine, and the other is deterring NATO — the U.S., really.” …
    5. Putin put Russia’s nuclear forces on alert while he annexed Crimea from neighboring Ukraine in 2014, stating later that year, as Russia escalated its backing for separatist fighters in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, that, “It is best not to mess with us when it comes to a possible armed conflict.” Russia, he told the audience comprising participants in a Kremlin youth camp, “is one of the leading nuclear powers.”
    6. Putin made a similar statement during a news conference this month with French President Emmanuel Macron in Moscow, warning that if Ukraine were to join NATO and attempt to take back Crimea, European countries would end up in a military conflict with Russia. …
    7. REFERENCE MAP OF UKRAINE WITH BORDER CONCERNS:
       1. REFERENCE: Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: “The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances refers to three identical political agreements signed at the OSCE conference in Budapest, Hungary on 5 December 1994 to provide security assurances by its signatories relating to the accession of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons …